Kinetica 2, the first liquid-fuel carrier rocket developed by CAS Space, a Chinese commercial space company, conducted on Monday evening its debut flight, placing an experimental robotic spaceship and two satellites into their orbits.

The 53-meter-tall rocket blasted off at 7 pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China's Gobi Desert, with flames shooting out of its nine first-stage engines as the gigantic vehicle took to the skies with a deafening roar.

After a short flight, the rocket flew into outer space and deployed the New March 02 experimental cargo spaceship, the New March 01 technology demonstration satellite and the TS 01 educational satellite into their preset orbital position.

This was the 12th orbital mission made by the Beijing-headquartered company, which was established by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and also marked the first time that any commercial rocket has been used in China's manned space program.

The Kinetica 2 is a medium-lift, liquid-fuel rocket and the second launch vehicle developed by CAS Space, following the Kinetica 1. It is the company's first liquid-propellant rocket, and is tasked with supporting China's large-scale satellite deployment and low-cost cargo transportation for the Chinese space station.

The rocket consists of a multi-stage core booster, which has a diameter of 3.35 meters, and two side boosters that also are 3.35 m wide. Its liftoff weight is 625 metric tons, with a maximum thrust of 753 tons. The rocket is able to transport spacecraft with a combined weight of 8 tons to a typical sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 500 kilometers or 12 tons to a low-Earth orbit 200 km above the land.